Last night I was watching VH1 Behind the Music & they had Judas Priest on. As I was watching it, it reminded me more & more of "Rock Star". It started with how they were struggled, how Rob Halford hid his homosexuality, & how they fired him & got a tribute band (of Judas Priest) to replace him. (Of course, what's Judas Priest without Rob Halford!) The only thing different was that the replacement singer didn't quit. Has anyone else posted about this? I could be wrong, but I just thought it was too much of a coincidence.

No Alice - you're not hallucinating (sp)!! I think if you read anything about the movie it will tell you that it was supposed to be loosely based on the whole Judas Priest thing but then they got kind of ticked off about the whole thing and then it got changed. But basically, I saw the VH1 thing as well, it was the same idea as Judas Priest. If you have the DVD or can rent it, watch the movie with the director's comments going. It's pretty cool!! I even thought it was interesting that the movie was originally going to be called "Metal God" and that's what they kept referring to Rob as.

Band distances itself from film that started out as a Tim 'Ripper' Owens biopic.

The New York Times' headline read, "Metal-Head becomes Metal-God." The August 1997 story by Andrew C. Revkin was about Tim "Ripper" Owens, a devout Judas Priest follower from Ohio who played in a Priest cover band. When original Priest vocalist Rob Halford quit the band in 1992, two fans sent the group a grainy videotape of Owens, whose singing voice bears an uncanny resemblance to Halford's. After viewing the tape, the band auditioned, and subsequently hired, the young American to be its new vocalist.

The day after the story ran, Revkin was contacted by "Clueless" producer Robert Lawrence. "He called me at the Times and said, 'This has got to be a movie,'" Revkin said.

Nearly four years later, Judas Priest are about to release their 15th album, Demolition (their second with Owens), and Warner Bros. Pictures and Bel Air Entertainment are preparing for the September 14 release of the film "Rock Star," which tells Owens' incredible story ... or does it?

In October 1999, the studio happily reported that the movie — which was originally to be called "Metal God" after the Judas Priest song "Metal Gods" — was based on the life of Owens, but now the company is backpedaling. Early this week a Warner Bros. spokesperson said it had nothing to do with Judas Priest or Tim Owens. Since then, the spokesperson has relented a tad and conceded that it was inspired by Revkin's New York Times article.

Initially, Judas Priest were interested in the project, and Warner Bros. wanted the band to write music for the soundtrack. However, the group wanted creative input on the film, and that soured the deal, said Revkin, who was hired as a creative consultant for the movie.

"They wanted to see screenplays and stuff," he said. "If you were Warner Bros. and you were gonna throw $30 million into making a movie, would you want a bunch of middle-aged former heavy metal stars to have creative control? No."

When Judas Priest discovered the movie script didn't follow Owens' actual story, they completely distanced themselves from the picture, and insisted that Warner Bros. make no reference to them in the film. Now the studio is being extremely cautious about even mentioning the name Judas Priest, lest the band take legal action.

"This is the thing that's sort of not very good for us," sighed Priest guitarist Glenn Tipton, during a phone interview while the band was on tour in Europe. "Everybody still thinks it's the story of Ripper, but it isn't."

Maybe not, but there are striking similarities. In the movie, Mark Wahlberg plays the singer of the cover band Steel Dragon, and he gets hired by the outfit he idolizes after two fans send that group a video of him performing. Like Judas Priest, the group's departing singer is gay.

"Yeah, but Rob [Halford] quit Judas Priest nearly a year before he was replaced," argued Bob Chiappardi, president of Concrete Marketing, whose company was hired to help plug the movie. "Here, the singer gets thrown out in the middle of a tour, and two weeks later his replacement is playing in front of huge stadiums. And obviously, Ripper didn't run off and become Pearl Jam."

Chiappardi added that "Rock Star" takes place in the 1980s, and the hedonistic revelry Steel Dragon partake in is strictly fictional, as is the love story between Wahlberg and co-star Jennifer Aniston. "Ninety percent of the movie is based on pure rock star mythology," he said.

This year, Judas Priest are reissuing their entire Columbia Records back catalog and releasing an album on their new label, Atlantic. At one point they might have hoped "Rock Star" would offer them some useful publicity. Now they fear it will provide exactly the opposite.

"They fabricated things and decided to pull away from my story and make their own because I guess mine was too normal," said Owens. "There's no telling what they put in there. If I could sue, I would."

"When the final thing comes out," concluded Tipton, "if people have misconstrued it with our story, then we will have to take some legal action."

— Jon Wiederhorn

I've not heard about any lawsuits going forward in subsequent interviews with Owens et al. So I take its a dead issue in light of the poor performance of this film.